a call to something higher

so...i feel really pressured after that last post to have something brilliant to say, 'tis why it's taken me so long to update...i wanted to say something with "oomph", something to make you feel empowered...but when i was venting to God about my writer's block and i got the distinct impression to just discuss on here what he's doing in my life and showing me, etc...etc...so, meh....if it's not brilliant, you, my readers, will simply have to deal with it (no nasty comments plz) :-)
*************************************************************************************

so i've recently been reading in Levitius (in the chapter 20s region) and it really struck me how much God required out of the Jews....there are lists and lists of things that they must not do and how they shouldn't follow the cultures surrounding them....he really expected them to live by a higher standard than everyone else, especially sexually and concerning the things they ate, etc.. and then i realized that life for the Jews was blessed, but the young people were just like us; they must have been tempted to do the things that the cultures around them said were ok...i'm sure they questions God's reasoning behind certain ordinances...and, while the rate of disobedience was pretty slim, i'd imagine, b/c the consequence was usually death, i'm sure they often were fed up with the do and do-not lists that they had to follow

one point that stood out to me the most was the list of do-NOTs concerning sexual practices.....the lists were very long and often seemed ridiculous to me b/c they contain things such as "do not sleep with your wife's sister" or "do not sleep with your mom" etc....and during this time period those things must have been fairly common in the surrounding cultures if God felt the need to devote nearly entire chapters to them ...however other things similiar to that, which might have seemed like no-duh statements back then b/c they're not really mentioned, are very prevalent today...for example a very big percentages of couples live together before getting married and "test the waters" so to speak and many people our age experiment with people that they don't even plan to be with in a few months.....umm i think God told us to wait until marriage for that stuff for a reason and not to just make us miserable.....but honestly i don't really struggle with that, so i'm pretty much done with that topic...it was just an observation

but moving on...there are several things that weren't necessarily mentioned in Leviticus that came to my mind when i thought about it.....come now, an easy way to stand out in today's society is how we talk, how we act in public towards people and authority figures and (yes i'm going there) how we dress...... i know that these three things are very much debated and are up to personal conviction, etc....and i don't mean to offend anyone, but here are my personal convictions (this is MY blog after all...if you want to spill your guts, get your own)

first of all, i really struggle with the clean speech thing....for those of you who know me well enough to have been around me for awhile (by that i mean several years) know that i used to have a rather colorful mouth and while, it's gotten better, it still gets a bit profane in my head and when i'm alone, especially when i'm tired ....i've really been convicted about the whole swearing thing for about a year now and here are my reasons...

1. It really affects your witness...with the ubiquitousness of the WWJD wristbands and cross necklaces people tend to over-look those obvious symbols and so we need another avenue to stand apart....our speech...seriously everyone in this culture swears and everyone HAS sworn i'm sure either in their head or out loud sometime in their life....but people really notice when you don't, in fact, they will even curb their own tongues around you if they know that you don't....as i slowly morphed into my cussing self back in the day, i noticed how it changed how people acted around me....on a good note, they seemed more open and comfortable to talk and express themselves around me, but then again, was that a good thing?? instead of standing apart and standing up for what i felt was wrong by simply omitting it from my language and making them rise to my level; i integrated myself into a society that freely threw around words that sometimes dissed my savior, and also glorified the harsher carnal side of society....come now, there is nothing uplifting about an F word thrown here and there, even if you say something is F***ing awesome....at least, that's my opinion

2. i don't think it Glorifies our God at all....in james it said that blessings and cursings should not come out of the same mouth and i agree....and while i really struggle with this, i think that he's dead on....i think it has to do with the whole consistancy with God thing and also acting out what you believe.....in proverbs or somewhere in the old testament it says that "out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks".....now, i'm not saying that constant sunshine and rainbows need to come out of our mouths all the time...but i feel that our words should reflect what we believe and who we are....yes there is joking around and a definite time and place for that, but i have to be careful only to do that around ppl who know i'm joking....my voice naturally carries and i have been caught in situations joking like that around people who did not know i was being ridiculous...sadly, i'm sure they were offended and if any of them are reading this...i apologize

(Ps....i just remembered a valid point that a friend of mine made one day...paul swore...yes, sometimes harsh language is needed in order to wake people up, to add emphasis etc....and i agree with that, honestly, i do....however the above was just my reasons for why i feel that i shouldn't...the end)

*ahem* my next rant is on how we act towards people and figures in authority over us.....yeah ok we are called to show Christ's love to people and it really frustrates me when i see Christians treating people who work in public service jobs rudely or being blatantly disrespectful to people in authority (no, nothing has happened recently that was a catalyst to this rant....it's always been one of my things).....people really notice how you treat people....i worked at McDonalds for awhile and saw this first hand from one of the people that i worked with who treated the managers terribly and he/she talked very loudly about going to church and being a Christian etc....honestly, the managers disliked this person severely and weren't afraid to vent their dislike to anyone who was around.....it just saddened me b/c this person had such a great opportunity to spread love to these people (combined with his/her loud proclamations of Christianity) and yet kind of blew it b/c how how he/she acted...i truly think that God wants us to be nice to waitresses, fellow motorists, toll booth workers, slow cashiers, slow ANYONE.....in this day and age, if something's not HERE and NOW when we want it, we tend to get a bit irate (and i am guilty of this as well) but more often than not, it's not the person's fault who's attending to us and they have no say in the matter....i also experienced this at McDonalds...some of the most impatient, rude people came in dressed up on sunday afternoons (leading to the assumption that they had been to church that morning)...granted not everyone was like this...there were some people who emulated God's love to us lowly McDonald's employees and i loved serving them and could tell that the other McWorkers could tell the difference as well.........

dun dun dun.....finally, people notice how we dress.....(i'm going to keep this brief b/c well....you all have heard me rant on this at one time or another)....first of all, i struggled with this for all of junior high and most of highschool...meh, make that ALL of highschool....modesty...dun dun dun, the dreaded word....seriously i hated it when my mom used it and then gave me the whole speech that i've seriously heard five million times...the one that's all about how men are more visual and how we shouldn't cause our brothers to stumble and how we should respect ourselves enough to dress like we deserve respect instead of inviting someone to treat us like a steak (ok so my mother's words were a bit more awkward, but you get the gist)...i can't even count how many times i've had to change before going out of the house and sometimes i even hid clothes in my car and then changed into them on the way to an event...(boo keitha, yes, i know) and while i know that this is very much a preference issue and i may even be more liberal with the word "appropriate/modest" than some of you may be; i do believe, ladies, that we all know the basics of what does and does not fall into this category.....AHH and i can't believe i'm giving this speech b/c i've heard it soooo many times since being at college and it feels so redundant....but *ahem women* we have an important job to do....and i used to be one of those girls that would say "well, they shouldn't look!!" or "it's impossible to find something THAT decent and they're used to seeing women looking like this anyways so meh...they can get over it"...or "i'm just trying to look pretty, i can't help it if it's TOO pretty"...NO NO NO NO...NO...NO....they have enough to worry about without having to deal with their sisters in christ, who are supposed to be helping them, causing temptation....the end....

ok to sum it up, people notice how we act, how we speak, how we dress and i think God intended it to be this way....when ppl know that you're a Christian, they watch you and they notice and even if they're not watching, we are called to live to a higher standard...after all, in Hebrews it does say that we are a "royal priesthood" among other things...did you know that the priests were called to an even HIGHER standard than the regular Jews? that's pretty intense

we are God's ambassadors to a lost and dying world....we should do everything in our power to show them what a God-filled life can look like so that they will want it and then find out how to get it for themselves

*********************************************************************************

so that's what Levitus (surprising...i know) has shown me in the few chapters that i've read so far